For the sake of this blog, I’m going to use the second part of the definition. To show courage. How many brands do we know that have been brave in this era of digital disruption? Not that many. To thrive and not just survive in today’s landscape, it’s doubly important for marketeers to hit the market with a bang.

So what have disruptive brands done that incumbent ones haven’t? Incumbent brands will generally have an incremental change mind set while disruptive brands come into the marketplace with a new way of thinking.

I’m speaking at the B2BInTech event next week, and while formulating my idea for the talk, I was thinking of why market leading brands should be more disruptive? Is it about having a brave marketing strategy or to maintain growth as a business? Or a bit of both? In fact, at a B2B event I attended at Google HQ in London, Google suggested search would not be its core business in 12 years which is why they experiment with things like driverless cars and Google Glass.

B2B marketeers are always on the lookout for more innovative ways to be communicative and being disruptive is key in today’s digital scenario. Rather than the way we normally frame activity around the idea of ‘think, feel, do’, we need to move to ‘do, feel think’. Cognitive dissonance is a powerful tool and focussing on actions as the prime driver will see more success.

Digital and social is huge for us – it’s the platform to engage on. And the bit that unnerves me the most is the fact we still see broken customer journeys across mobile, it’s time we fix that and do as much as we can in that area. In terms of social media, I don’t think there are many businesses that realise its full potential, which is a shame as it can help answer so many different types of business objective. And I keep saying this again and again, but there’s a lot of potential in social listening, we just need to tap that resource to get the right learnings.

Someone asked me what the next big thing in B2B tech marketing is – I didn’t have an answer to that question, but I sure hope its quality and not quantity. At MOI, we are really steering towards a mobile first approach for our clients who see its value. We work with some clients to build mobile apps into their campaign activity as ‘throw away’ apps that that are there for the lifetime of the campaign, and then look at more utility based apps for other projects that will have a ‘go to’ app in the business place.

So again, my two cents on the future of B2B marketing: Never stop asking ‘why’ and be brave.

Watch me speak on ‘Be Brave. Be Disruptive’ at B2B InTech on Wednesday, 18th March. MOI will be present with our Little Shop of More and Little Book of More. Come, say hi!